


He Bought You Flours

by TriffidsandCuckoos



Category: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (TV 2016)
Genre: Breakfast, Cinnamon Roll Dirk Gently, Domestic Fluff, Fluff, M/M, Neither is the author, No Plot/Plotless, Pancakes, Pararibulitis (Dirk Gently), Todd Brotzman is Bad at Feelings, Todd Brotzman is not a morning person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-07
Updated: 2019-11-07
Packaged: 2021-01-25 04:29:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21350263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TriffidsandCuckoos/pseuds/TriffidsandCuckoos
Summary: Breakfast isn't a badass meal.Todd used to make Amanda guilt pancakes. Dirk would like these pancakes, minus the guilt.
Relationships: Todd Brotzman/Dirk Gently
Comments: 26
Kudos: 121





	He Bought You Flours

**Author's Note:**

  * For [flightinflame](https://archiveofourown.org/users/flightinflame/gifts).

> Blessings to the film 'Stranger Than Fiction' for the pun.
> 
> Sometimes somebody ([FlightinFlame](https://archiveofourown.org/users/flightinflame/pseuds/flightinflame)) prompts 'pancakes' and you write 4000+ words. It happens.

Breakfast isn’t a badass meal. 

It isn’t even a bad meal. It’s an excuse for morning people to devour grapefruit and bran whilst beaming happily away in the dawn sunlight before or after their invigorating run – in other words, an abomination against everything. One of these days the agency will have to fight zombie morning people and Todd will experience some sort of validation nirvana.

Even when Todd is up in the mornings – which is a 'when' instead of an 'if' despite his extensive and extremely thought-through explanations as to why he has to sleep until at least eleven o'clock or he'll have some sort of psychotic episode (which in retrospect is maybe a phrase he should just cut out of his vocabulary altogether if he's going to be spending the rest of his life with Dirk and also a super fun mental illness) - _even then_, breakfast is not on the table. Or it is on the table _literally_, but he is not eating it. That one.

Farah does not consume grapefruit but she does go for runs and eat bran, although Todd is willing to excuse that as her being a badass who lives the life of a film secret agent rather than being an obnoxious person. Meanwhile, Dirk consumes the sorts of cereals Todd decided he was too cool for the moment Amanda stopped eating them – the kind which are more technicolor than nutrition. Sometimes Farah suggests changing Dirk's morning diet for reasons of basic health (both Dirk's physically and Farah's mentally), an idea Todd sort of wishes she'd just stop trying because Dirk is always going to get those betrayed eyes and sloping shoulders and then Todd feels obligated to step in if Farah hasn't somehow completed melted in the face of that Disney princess ridiculousness.

Dirk is another exception to Todd’s blanket hatred of people who operate in the morning. He survived a not-government institution, _twice_, so he wakes up at seven a.m. on the dot if they don't have a case and that's trauma. (The morning after cases is Todd's favourite time, sprawled out on the mattress the good kind of exhausted and Dirk sprawled out on top of him.) Todd is an asshole but he's not a Twitter commenter type of asshole. If Dirk wants chemical Irish stereotypes at unspeakable hours then let him. 

Just don't expect Todd to join in.

\---

"Amanda says you make pancakes."

Todd blinks, mostly because that comment came right the fuck out of nowhere while they're picking their way through the inner guts of a skyscraper conceived by a sci-fi writer obsessed with neon. 

"You won't fall if you don't look down."

Dirk does not look down, neither at the horrifying drop nor where he's putting his feet. As much as Todd would like to believe the universe is covering this one, he's also seen Dirk walk into streetlights, so excuse him if he sounds a little sharp because it's this or the much less cool option of screaming.

"Why don't you make them for us?"

It's hard to convey Todd's levels of disbelief at the shit Dirk comes out with through his face alone, especially when Dirk is so patently terrible at reading faces. By this point the interconnectedness stuff is sounding fairly normal, but the human interaction ideas most probably never will.

"We're kind of in the middle of something, Dirk."

"Well, yes, _physically_, but I don't see why we always have to shuffle around evil lairs in total silence. After all, the clockwork crows already ate most of the – "

"Yeah, I know, I was there," Todd says hastily. Then, "Wait, is that what made you think about pancakes?"

Dirk hummed to himself. "It definitely started around there," he says, mouth moving in that way too fascinating way which Todd never could stop watching, where it was like the whole thought process was running itself on some sort of lip pendulum action. "Then I was thinking about how they did that, being clockwork and all, and then – "

"Dirk. I don't think I actually want to know." He _thinks_. That's the thing, Todd never stops thinking about this stuff either. It's sort of nice to know that he isn't the only one, even if he never verbalises it the way Dirk does. Helps him blend in, even if he's not sure what he's trying to fit into anymore.

"True, not relevant," Dirk agrees. "What's relevant is that you don't make pancakes and you should."

"I don't eat pancakes, Dirk."

"Well, no, because we don't have any," Dirk says, with the flawless and uncompromising logic of a child. All the Blackwing subjects Todd has met have done that, come to think of it. Maybe it's actually that all kids have a connection to the universe? It would explain why Todd has always found them so unnerving. "But we could, if you made them."

"Why were you even talking to Amanda about this?" Todd asks, which seems much easier than following the current trajectory of the conversation, although even as he says it he gets the sinking feeling of realising he's in a conversation about Amanda and therefore revelations about how he's a piece of shit can't be that far off.

"I didn't," Dirk says, "or rather I didn't start off talking about this, we talk about loads of things, but then we got onto breakfast and I said how you don't eat anything and frankly Todd it does seem to lead to a rather lax attitude vis-à-vis enthusiasm for the agency – "

"I don't speak French, Dirk."

" – _and then_ Amanda told me that it's a shame really because you always used to make these _delicious_ pancakes when she was younger and then later as what she thinks is a guilt – " His mouth snaps shut. "You know what?" he adds, in a much higher voice than Todd's ears were prepared for. "That part doesn't matter."

"Sure it doesn't." She's right though. Guilt pancakes. Like carbs and syrup would change anything.

An awkward silence falls (or settles, since ‘falling’ is not a concept worth indulging right now). Not that Todd wants to think of it as awkward, since that would mean they’re specifically not talking about something he expressly does not want to talk about. Unfortunately, Dirk has this really inconvenient way of projecting his emotions onto anything and so, despite the fact that Todd really should be focusing on how the fuck they’re supposed to get down from here, he finds himself oppressively aware of the waves of awkwardness not so much washing over him as punching him in the stomach anyway. (He tried surfing, once. Got hit by a wave that felt like a wall, and decided posing with the board had all the benefits without getting crushed by nature.) 

"They were guilt pancakes," he says, because he’s weak enough without turning to see whether Dirk is pouting. "It was dumb, I know. Like that would make any difference if she knew. And it didn't." If a winning lottery ticket didn't do it, why the fuck would fucking pancakes? "Just – All these things I used to do for her. Like pretending to be this perfect big brother would somehow make that the truth and not the part where I ruined her life."

Wires are sticking out of the wall ahead, sparking. Pretty terrible health and safety, even for an evil lair. Todd has a sudden extremely vivid image of himself grabbing hold and never letting go, and then tries to think about anything else because if he is going to experience that he wants to at least get the choice of doing it rather than the illness seizing the opportunity.

He jumps a fucking mile when a hand touches the small of his back, lurching to the side and arms windmilling as he tries to get away from whoever is trying to push him. And then Dirk catches his arm, and, right, Dirk.

"They do sound nice."

Todd attempts to sound like he hasn’t just almost fallen to a very splashy death, with no idea as to how successful he is. "That's not the point."

"Maybe it wasn't the point," Dirk allows, tilting his head in consideration, "and maybe it was rooted in a desire to somehow eradicate years of lying through breakfast food – "

"The point, Dirk."

" – _but_ she did like them." Dirk raises his eyebrows as if this resolves everything. It’s not that Todd is great with people, actually it’s basically the opposite, but there’s something so staggering about the way Dirk just _does not get people_. Although that never stops him getting on with them, at least the nice ones. Todd can’t manage that. Maybe Dirk is so bad with people that he circles round to being good again? Except no, Todd has seen him thrown through multiple walls, and not always by the people they’re actively trying to stop.

"Todd?"

"That doesn't change anything," Todd says. "They tasted good, that's it."

"So you do think they tasted good?"

Todd can actually feel the frown embedding itself in his face. "Is this therapy or are you just hungry?"

"I am not nor have I ever been a qualified psychiatrist."

"Or anything else," Todd mutters as he turned away, perfectly aware he’s being petty for its own sake. "Dirk, I'll make you all the damn pancakes you want if we get out of here."

\---

They got out of there.

Dirk now expects pancakes.

Todd knows Dirk expects pancakes because the refrigerator is suddenly full of milk, eggs and flour (the last of which had been subsequently removed by Farah, who added that under no accounts is Dirk to try to keep it warm either). At first Todd is impressed by the implied knowledge of recipes, coming from someone who once asked whether chicken dinosaurs hatched from eggs in such a serious voice that both Todd and Farah had just backed away. Then he realises that the milk includes not only soya and almond varieties but also chocolate and strawberry, and their corner of the universe makes sense again.

"You know you don't use strawberry milk to get strawberry pancakes?" he asks Dirk, meaning to sound judgy and just coming out annoyingly soft.

"Then why do they sell it?"

Todd doesn’t feel like untangling that one, especially when he notices that Mona has turned into a plastic form of pancakes he hasn’t seen since he was seven years old and he and Amanda had melted their plastic kitchen oven. (How she’s projecting hopefulness as imitation baked goods, he doesn’t know, but she definitely is.) Instead he just quietly closes the refrigerator door and retreats.

For almost a week he gets away with getting up late and then explaining to Dirk that pancakes are breakfast food so they can’t have them. He even manages to dodge the point about diner pancakes, because those aren’t Todd's. Okay, so maybe he’s being an asshole, but the alternative is being the dick who can’t face freaking breakfast cooking without remembering how he screwed over his own sister. Call it being overdramatic, but the more he has to dodge around milk with smiley faces or try to find his beer behind piles of eggs, the more he just doesn’t want to see it.

\---

It's five-thirty in the morning.  
Todd seriously considers going back to sleep again, with headphones and shitty YouTube and whatever else it takes, except he's not so sure it would do anything. That dream’s still lurking there – a dream bad enough to wake him up with an attack, that's an _excellent_ development – and even now he can feel it hanging over everything like pot smoke. The shitty cheap stuff that feels like it's clinging to your teeth.

No. The universe wants him awake? Fine, he's awake, fucking thanks for that, universe. Today's going to _suck_ because he might not be together enough to speak but he can still do basic maths on sleeping when the answer is 'not enough'. The alternative is nightmares though, and he has time before the world starts swimming out of the corner of his eye. Usually that doesn't translate into attacks, so at least he has that one very tiny shitty bonus.

He has absolutely no idea when Farah wakes up, but she doesn't sleep here so it's sort of a moot point. Dirk has another hour and a half, given that he somehow slept through that and also stole all the blankets in the night, which leaves Todd very bored with nothing to do once the coffee's on. Moodily sipping from a lurid pink spotted (clean) mug whilst sitting on the couch with a blanket sort of loosely dragged from the back only takes up so much time before your leg goes to sleep and your brain kicks in just enough to decide that a dirty mug would be better than a pink mug.

He cleans their bathroom, but that takes a surprisingly short amount of time considering two guys live here. Presumably all the mess is Todd or Todd-adjacent, even if he's holding out hope that _maybe_ Dirk could _just once_ feel like he can leave his toothbrush on the side or, you know, not erase every trace of his presence from the shower. (Besides the scent of his shampoo which is basically embedded in the walls now, so that to shower is to encase yourself in some sort of tropical greenhouse. Dirk's lucky Todd's disease seems to like him.) Call him selfish, but Todd just doesn't like the constant daily reminder of how shitty life has been to Dirk. He's 90% sure Dirk isn't lying about going to college (at least for one semester) and the idea that you can do that as a male human being and still pick up after yourself does not make sense in the slightest. Todd's had acid trips which made more sense than that.

Bathroom arranged, both bedrooms territorial, living room 'cosy' (Dirk Gently, last night, patting the table and Mona's perfect replica of the table complete with bottles); that left Todd wandering aimlessly into their kitchen. There's a suggestion of dawn light, which means it's past dawn but the Seattle weather is choosing to ignore that fact. Sometimes Todd wonders whether Dirk settled here because it's the closest thing to England the US has and that can only help with that whole...camouflage thing he's doing. (Not that Dirk blends in, not in the _slightest_, but something about sounding English definitely seems to set off this thing in everyone's brains that just says 'eccentric' and handwaves way too many things.) It's not even good rain for glaring at, it's just grey, which is no use to anyone. There's a reason songs tend to be about storms – at least, the songs Todd actually likes rather than fucking posers who think their supercharged contract lives are so hard. Todd had a fight with a giant electric penguin then rounded out the day with thinking a thousand wasps were stinging him, the fuck do those whiny brats know?

He thinks he's had enough coffee to come up with a decent argument for why beer is now an acceptable choice. The line of 'it's so early it's basically night for me' has a nice logical weight to it, and so does 'beer isn't proper alcohol anyway'. One of them should work, right? Not like anyone can judge him. Or they can, but that's their problem if that's the thing about Todd they want to judge.

He opens the fridge and the chocolate milk beams at him. When he narrows his eyes the face does not change, and it looks the same as the carton next to it, so it's probably possibly sort of maybe not Mona. All the same, he keeps half an eye on it in case it suddenly turns into a spider because 'Todd makes such funny sounds when I do that'.

The refrigerator has been rearranged to make room for fresh leftovers and whatever shiny thing caught Dirk's eye during the last grocery run (Todd isn't even going to try to pronounce the label), but it is still full of eggs and milk and one bag of flour which has the same hopeful air that Dirk projects when he's doing his best pleading puppy eyes.

This is a bad idea. At least, Todd thinks it's a bad idea, although he's very aware that his judgement is...not the greatest. And crouched over, staring blankly at an impossible bag of flour, he's struggling to think of exactly why he's so against this. It's just pancakes.

It all comes back to him really easily, because it's not like this is a hard recipe even before you do it literally every time you visit your sister for years. Still, he's never done it in absolute silence before, without either music or Amanda chatting away about the latest thing she's learnt online. It gives a weirdly dreamlike feel to everything – without actually being a dream, he does know the difference.

He crumbles the flour between his fingers even though he doesn't have to. It's just one of those sensations for him, something smooth and pleasant. Something about the soft resistance opens something up inside him and he finds himself breathing deeply again. He really shouldn't, but when all the ingredients are in a bowl he washes his hands and then dips his fingers in, just to feel the textures of it. One of those little things from when you're a kid, the weird rituals you develop just because you like it, nothing more than that. He never did this when making them with Amanda, busy listening to her and also aware she never would have let him hear the end of it.

Maybe he should text her later. Not calling her, but giving her the space to decide whether she wants to talk to him.

And now he's an idiot with metaphorical egg on his face and literal egg on his hands.

Wash it off and get the pan out. Start off small: just plain pancakes without anything in them. Besides, Dirk's shopping trips have mostly focused on the core ingredients and not anything helpful like _actual_ strawberries.

He's watching them bubble away in the pan when two arms suddenly appear around him, exerting just enough pressure to pull him back into an unmistakeable hug. Sleepy British noises accompany the sensation of someone nosing their way into his hair like a gangly British hedgehog.

"Pancakes?" Dirk asks.

"I thought you were asleep."

"I was, so you were right." How Dirk manages this so soon after waking up is pretty beyond Todd. The institutionalised life might have some perks – either that or it's just Dirk, and Todd much prefers that idea. "Something good?"

"I haven't finished them yet, so we'll see."

"No, I," Dirk says, then rests his forehead on Todd's shoulder with a sound like air emitting from a busted inflatable. Todd allows himself a smirk at the image of the curve Dirk must be forcing his spine into to do that, grateful that Dirk can't see his face and therefore can't force him to explain. "I wasn't sure why you were making them."

"You asked me to," Todd reminds him, extricating his arm enough to grab the spatula. "A lot. A lot a lot."

"But you're making them," Dirk says again. "Is it a reward? Are you punishing yourself?"

"What? No!" Todd says, before he can fully process what Dirk is even asking him. Then he thinks about it, so he can give a real answer. "No, I'm not. I – I had a bad dream – _not like that_," he adds hastily as Dirk's arms tighten and he has to wonder whether a lifeless corpse can still serve pancakes. "Just...stuff, you know. I didn't want to stay in bed, got bored, and these are easy to make." He pokes at the rough circles and figures they're done. He had thought about trying shapes to make Dirk smile but it's probably better not to open himself up to that kind of embarrassment, especially because he couldn't think of any shapes which would actually be recognisable and not somehow spark off some sudden hidden trauma.

Dirk's arms relax, albeit not all the way. "If you're sure," he says, sounding extremely doubtful.

"Do you want pancakes or not?" Todd asks, remembering at the last second to exaggerate the teasing lilt. Dirk generally picks up on that stuff, or at least seems to recognise that Todd is 'usually just a _tad_ grumpy, not a complaint but not altogether desirable in a ward either' which is apparently why Todd is permanently 'demoted' from that particular relationship quandary. On the other hand, when there's a sense of something being withheld, most of all food, it really does save a lot of time and guilt to make it clear he's joking. Not that Dirk altogether appreciates it being treated as a joke anyway.

Dirk says, "I do," with such seriousness and purpose that Todd almost chokes on his own tongue.

\---

Given that Dirk has been badgering him about these pancakes for what seems like forever, Todd is trying not to feel offended about the drowning via maple syrup he's witnessing on the other side of the table. Trying and only partly succeeding. Eating the syrup with a spoon would be easier, he thinks, since the pancakes can only be an inconvenience at this rate.

"We're going to run out pretty quick if you keep that up," he says, arranging his face into what he hopes appears to be a human smile. In his defence, it’s still not even nine o'clock.

"Ah, I thought of that," Dirk says with a sly 'aren't I cunning' face, although given that the expression is still having to occupy _Dirk's_ face it doesn't actually look all that sly or cunning. "We have a cupboard."

Todd hesitates. "We have...a few cupboards, Dirk. That's what a fitted kitchen looks like." Todd knows that has to be true. Having one of his own still takes some getting used to, though – or rather one that he uses to make something other than instant noodles or reheated pizza. Dirk just looks so _happy_ about cooked meals.

"Yes, but one of them is now a supply cupboard for pancakes."

Slowly, Todd gets up and walks over to the kitchen, casting glances back every now and again at Dirk beaming away. The first couple of cupboards have the usual mix of crockery and sauces; the third is almost completely full of maple syrup, of many brands and shapes and sizes, and some flour crammed in the corner.

"Is that how the flour got back in the fridge?"

"Having it on the side is just messy, Todd."

Todd nods, for want of anything else to do, and closes the cupboard door again. He leans his weight against the counter. "Dirk. That's an awful lot for something when you don't even know if it'll taste any good."

"Buf i' _duff_ To'."

It says a lot about what Dirk has done to Todd's life that apparently his default now is to assume that Dirk has started speaking a completely different language, like Wendimoorian or French. The revelation that he has his mouth full isn't exactly unwelcome but it is rather dull as far as the universe goes.

"I think that's a good thing," he says, hedging his bets on the feedback front.

Dirk holds both his hands out with thumbs extended about as far up as they could probably go, nodding enthusiastically and making muffled noises which might be positive or might be recommendations for an alternative recipe. Dirk's eyes have gone very wide though, and that's the real reassurance. A happy Dirk has a way of soaking that happiness into everything around him, but there's something much more personal about trying so hard to convey that excitement at a specific person. Like when Dirk told Dirk Todd would be his best friend, or his reaction after that time Todd had joked that technically he'd never agreed to join the agency and then quickly made reassurances when he thought Dirk was actually going to combust on the sidewalk and old ladies with pomeranians were giving him very narrow-eyed looks.

Somewhere during this flashback he distantly realises there is a tortoise in the present day eating a small sliver of pancake. Hopefully it's Mona.

"Yeah, well," he says, his usual filler words as reliable as shoving his hands in his pockets and taking an interest in anything except the person opposite, "one time, you know? I'm not getting up to make these special or anything."

There's this slightly concerning glint in Dirk's eyes now. Todd would happily describe Dirk as 'unnerving' on any given day, but something about this makes him shift uncomfortably in his seat.

"I don't do mornings, Dirk."

"I never said you did, Todd."

No, he didn't. But he also never said Todd would definitely make him pancakes, and here they are. This is just Todd's life now.

\---

Farah's a little surprised to say the least, the first time she comes into the apartment and finds them eating pancakes and bacon and strawberries. "Todd, you're...up early."

Todd just blinks at her over his coffee. "I'm not going running."

"I...wasn't asking you to?" Carefully Farah moves over to the table and pulls out a chair to sit in. "It smells good in here."

"To' _'ooks_," Dirk announces with glee. "'E's _'er'et_."

Todd wouldn't say that he 'speaks Dirk' the way Farah accuses him of, even when there isn't a solid mass of pancake in the way. Despite this he can still feel a wash of heat creeping up his back and into his cheeks and forcing him to swallow coffee until he chokes, because that's better than Farah watching him.

He's not perfect. Not by a long shot, or by anyone's definition except the crazy weirdo who dropped into his apartment and has started coming up with very ridiculous excuses to sleep in Todd's bed and then nuzzle him awake in the mornings (seriously, _nuzzling_, it's like having a handsy dog, which is not an image anybody has ever wanted and yet is somehow charming).

But he always knows when Dirk thinks he's perfect.


End file.
